Flusurvey

In 2013-2014, The British Science Association worked with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine on Flusurvey, an online system for tracking flu symptoms that asks participants to complete weekly symptom surveys between November and April. The survey runs annually but specifically needed more under-18-year-olds to participate.

We therefore created free materials, including a lesson plan, activity ideas and student handouts, to help educate pupils on the survey, encourage participation and support them in discussing the findings. For British Science Week 2014 (formerly National Science & Engineering Week) we also created an activity resource, 'Disease detectives', for student’s to analyse and interpret data from the survey.

A total of 4,321 people completed at least two symptom surveys, making their data useful for the researchers. Of these, 590 were under-18-year-olds (up from 274 under-18s in 2013).